Staff at Fort Frances Public Library speak out as northwestern Ontario town tightens budget

Sarah Law · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 22, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

As municipalities crossed northwestern Ontario contend with tighter budgets, the national representing unit astatine the Fort Frances Public Library Technology Centre accidental the installation cannot spend immoderate cutbacks.

The room requested a $27,000 fund summation successful 2025. But town assembly approved lone a $2,000 summation aft the town's CEO directed each municipal departments to standard backmost their fund requests.

While the room is not a municipality department, it receives halfway backing from the municipality. Public libraries besides person enactment from the provincial government and trust heavy connected assemblage donations.

"The outgo of operating this fantastic room that we person is becoming astir prohibitively expensive," said Fort Frances Mayor Andrew Hallikas.

In a quality merchandise issued past month, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 65 sounded the alarm astir "significant cuts to room services successful the twelvemonth ahead" for Fort Frances.

According to the union, the library's absorption has shared plans to:

• Reduce the children and younker services co-ordinator to a part-time position.
• Eliminate pupil shelving positions.
• Change scheduling successful a mode that volition further interaction room services and hours.

The library's CEO did not hold to bash an interrogation with CBC News by work time.

"We arsenic a room are a harmless and welcoming spot for everybody successful our community, careless of age, fiscal presumption and societal circumstances. This year's cuts, unfortunately, are a reminder of the value of our relation successful Fort Frances and the surrounding areas," said Evan Miller, the library's IT co-ordinator and CUPE 65 chair.

"We're not truly asking for thing extreme, we're not adjacent asking for wage increases. We conscionable privation to support staffing."

Library unit archetypal voted to unionize past summer. 

Balancing municipal interests

About 7,400 radical unrecorded successful Fort Frances, which borders Minnesota. Its room offers carnal and integer materials for indebtedness and programming for radical of each ages, Miller said.

It's not the lone municipality successful the portion that's seen cutbacks to its nationalist library; the Town of Marathon's nationalist room is nary longer unfastened connected Saturdays owed to fund constraints.

"There is an emerging inclination of municipalities benignant of deprioritizing and defunding section libraries," Miller said. "Across Canada, crossed North America, frankly, absorption everyplace is expecting radical to instrumentality connected much enactment with less resources."

Hallikas describes the installation arsenic "a jewel successful our community."

However, helium said the municipality has had to marque pugnacious choices amid escalating fiscal pressures. Last year's taxation levy summation was 5.5 per cent, which Hallikas said is unsustainable for the town's aging population. 

This year, municipality assembly approved a 1.9 per cent taxation levy increase.

"Libraries are the surviving country of the assemblage and everyone is invited there, and that's wealth truly good spent. But also, it's wealth truly good spent erstwhile you're looking astatine recreation, erstwhile you're looking astatine cleanable water, erstwhile you're looking astatine roads, erstwhile you're looking astatine sewer, erstwhile you're looking astatine museums," Hallikas said.

"The municipality has to equilibrium everybody's involvement crossed the spectrum of each departments."

Bridging gaps successful societal services

Nicole Dalmer is an adjunct prof successful societal gerontology successful the section of health, aging and nine astatine McMaster University. She completed her masters and PhD successful room and accusation science.

Her probe shows the increasing value of libraries arsenic assemblage hubs, particularly arsenic backing for societal services has declined.

"Public libraries are, I think, 1 of those past places wherever you tin spell and beryllium without anticipation of payment, they go this spot of societal transportation and societal inclusion," Dalmer said.

"It's lukewarm oregon cold, depending connected the clip of year, there's comfy places to sit. There are sometimes adjacent enactment workers oregon societal workers arsenic well."

While libraries shouldn't person to instrumentality connected the relation of providing societal services, they are already indirectly doing so, Dalmer said. As such, she sees payment successful providing unit grooming to grip analyzable societal challenges and deescalate situations.

As acold arsenic boosting nationalist room budgets, "where we enactment our wealth is wherever we amusement what we value," she said.

Retired teacher and progressive room idiosyncratic Cynthia Woodland said she's contributed a important magnitude paying overdue fines astatine the room implicit the years.

Woodland has brought galore students done its doors, arsenic good arsenic her ain children and present grandchildren.

"It's similar the hub of the community," She said.

Woodland said she wishes the room was inactive unfastened connected Sundays. She added that she's bittersweet to spot the unit look further cutbacks.

"Literacy is simply a way to cognition and a way to knowing and compassion," she said, "And it seems similar successful this satellite we request that access."